Window On Eurasia: Moscow’s ‘Extremist’ Lists Grow In Number, Size And Import
|
posted by eagle on July, 2009 as Imperialism
Paul Goble
Vienna, July 2 – Ever more Russian institutions from the courts to the interior ministry to the Academy of Sciences are maintaining “extremist” lists which, because of elastic definition of that term, threaten not only those individuals, groups and works included on them but also everyone else thinking about doing anything the powers that be in Russia today might not like.
As a result, while some involved in compiling these lists may simply be going through the motions for careerist or other reasons, any who do take part are, whether they recognize it or not, thereby threatening the foundations of civil society in the Russian Federation and pushing that country back toward its totalitarian past.
And that is all the more so because those who figure on these lists have already been subjected to one or another ...
comments (0)
NY Times: Russia’s Neighbors Resist Wooing And Bullying
|
posted by eagle on as Imperialism
Russia’s Neighbors Resist Wooing and Bullying
By ELLEN BARRY Published: July 2, 2009 MOSCOW — This was supposed to be Russia’s round in the battle over its backyard. All year, despite its own economic spasms, Moscow has earmarked great chunks of cash for its impoverished post-Soviet neighbors, seeking to lock in their loyalty over the long term and curtail Western influence in the region.
But the neighbors seem to have other ideas. Belarus — which was promised $2 billion in Russian aid — is in open rebellion against the Kremlin, flaunting its preference for Europe while also collecting money from the International Monetary Fund. Uzbekistanjoined Belarus in refusing to sign an agreement on the Collective Rapid Reaction Forces, an idea Moscow sees as an eventual counterweight toNATO. There are other examples, like Turkmenistan’s May signing of a gas exploration deal with a German company, and Armenia’s awarding of a major national honor to Moscow’s nemesis, President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia. But the biggest came last week when Kyrgyzstan — set ...
comments (0)
NY Times: Russia’s Neighbors Resist Wooing and Bullying
|
posted by eagle on as Imperialism
Russia’s Neighbors Resist Wooing and Bullying
By ELLEN BARRY Published: July 2, 2009 MOSCOW — This was supposed to be Russia’s round in the battle over its backyard. All year, despite its own economic spasms, Moscow has earmarked great chunks of cash for its impoverished post-Soviet neighbors, seeking to lock in their loyalty over the long term and curtail Western influence in the region.
But the neighbors seem to have other ideas. Belarus — which was promised $2 billion in Russian aid — is in open rebellion against the Kremlin, flaunting its preference for Europe while also collecting money from the International Monetary Fund. Uzbekistanjoined Belarus in refusing to sign an agreement on the Collective Rapid Reaction Forces, an idea Moscow sees as an eventual counterweight toNATO. There are other examples, like Turkmenistan’s May signing of a gas exploration deal with a German company, and Armenia’s awarding of a major national honor to Moscow’s nemesis, President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia. But the biggest came last week when Kyrgyzstan — set ...
comments (0)
Prague Watchdog: Kremlin Alchemy
|
posted by eagle on as Imperialism
Kremlin alchemy
By German Sadulayev, special to Prague Watchdog
St. Petersburg
St. Petersburg The space in my Russian passport marked "place of birth" says “Chechen Republic”. That is not true. I was born in 1973, and in those days there was no Chechen Republic. It was the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic – the ChI ASSR – and its capital was Grozny. Soviet power had united the Chechens and the Ingush in a single territory. It is worth remembering that in March 1991 a referendum was held in which the vast majority of the population of the republics of the Soviet Union voted for the preservation of the USSR. In both Chechnya and Ingushetia the idea of separation from Russia was really popular – separation not into the void, however, but within a single unified state. This should have been a qualitative shift from national autonomy to ... |
>> full
comments (0)
Window On Eurasia: Russia Would Be Better Off Without Non-Russian Areas, Some Russian Nationalists Say
|
posted by eagle on as Imperialism
Paul Goble
Vienna, July 1 – In recent statements, some of which eerily recall writer Valentin Rasputin’s 1989 proposal that Russia should leave the Soviet Union, some Russian nationalists are now arguing that their nation both as a people and a state would be far better off if it were to jettison the North Caucasus and possibly other non-Russian regions as well.
Such ideas are not entirely new – indeed, their authors have sometimes been classified by scholars as “little Russia” nationalists – and they are certainly not widespread, with most ethnic Russians still committed to the defense of the borders of their country without much regard to the costs involved for themselves or those living in those regions.
But the appearance of such arguments now, ones that in the words of one commentator appear to ...
comments (0)
|
